I don't believe in love.
After all, what is it, even? (What a cliché.) Why is it so universal? Why is it so easy for billions of people to carelessly claim that they've 'been in love', and yet still end up so unhappy? How can those who claim to be in love still live such lackluster lives?
Shouldn't love be that all-consuming emotion that makes even the most despondent person ecstatic, because their entire world revolves around this 'love', and nothing else could ever conceivably matter?
Is it possible that love doesn't even exist?
Or, maybe the select few people who have ever experienced it have never gone on to speak about it, because whatever they had could probably never be explained by the stringing together of some twenty-six alphabets. Maybe that's what love is. Unexplainable. Unreasonable. Untouchable.
Lately, I've been wondering a lot about what the word 'love' means.
"Molly."
I turned to be greeted by a flurry of honeyed peach hair, interspersed with glimpses of three glossy black bobby pins, making its way up the dusty path to my farm.
"Chase." I nodded in return.
Before I could react, a perfectly made piece of strawberry shortcake was plopped into my hands. It almost seemed to glint in its perfection.
"What's this?" I asked Chase dumbly, mouth slightly agape.
He smirked in amusement, but decided to humour my seemingly obvious question. "I made it for you, smart ass." Sarcasm dripped from his words.
"Why?"
Chase didn't waste a minute. "You kissed me."
Tension seemed to fill the air as he brought up the subject we'd failed to mention from three weeks before. The subject we'd simply glossed over, acting as if it'd never happened; for no voiced reasons.
He remained perfectly still, watching me closely for a flicker of remembrance.
"Yeah," I finally replied, making sure to keep my emotions from showing on my face.
"And then you brushed it off, like it never happened." He took a step towards me, peering into my face, like he was trying to read it. "Why?"
"I was told guys like to be left hanging," I semi-joked in retort, haphazardly constructing a wall to barricade Chase off from my thoughts.
He took a violent step back, eyebrows furrowed in clear dissatisfaction; he crossed his arms over his chest, raising an eyebrow to unnerve me. We both stared at each other in a battle of endurance – or stubbornness – trying to see who would crack first. Finally, Chase closed his violet eyes and let out a sigh.
"I don't like girls who play games."
My heart dropped, from shock; anger; guilt. Chase glared at me coolly, but not coldly. He gestured minimally towards the slice of cake I held in my hands, "And I don't like playing games either."
"I'm not just any girl," I answered by reflex. Instinct.
"I thought so too," he replied, arms still crossed, "but your little games seem to be proving me wrong."
My eyes narrowed in offense. "Don't lump me together with other girls."
"Why shouldn't I?" Chase took another step closer to me, "You say you're not like other girls but then you go and act just like them." His face was mere inches away from mine; his voice soft but steady. "If you ask me," his hot breath tickled my lips, "I think you're caught between who you are and who you want to be."
My whole life, I've been afraid of falling.
Of falling from somewhere I'd worked so hard to climb up to – the multi-faceted persona I'd managed to cultivate for myself; the philosophical outlook I'd managed to gain on life; the untouchable heart I'd hardened towards the world. Why would I let everything I'd worked so hard to achieve go so easily?
People are always trying to come into your life, with a simple, "Hi," or, "How are you?" Always trying to change you into who they want you to be. Why let someone change you when you've worked so hard to become the person you are? Just one sentence, and everything you've ever known about yourself could be altered. Shattered. Smithereens.
If you ask me,
I'm sitting perched on a magnificently high branch – on a great elm tree I've been climbing up for years. I'm watching as people go by, trying to climb their way up, to who they want to be. I laugh at them mockingly, haughty about how I've climbed my way up my tree so early; so effortlessly.
I think you're caught between who you are
But suddenly I lose my balance, and no matter how desperately far I stretch my arm out, I've lost my chance at gripping onto my branch. I'm abruptly hurled into the air, and I'm free falling for all that I'm worth; no sounds come out of my mouth because I'm too completely petrified about what I know is definitely coming – the ground. The starting point.
I clamp my eyes shut, bracing myself for my inevitable doom, and I curse all the gods I don't believe in for pulling me away from the place I'd worked all my life to reach. I'm falling and I'm falling and I'm falling and I'm so, so angry, but more importantly, I'm terrified.
But then I finally reach the ground, and I feel no pain. Surprised, I open my eyes to be met with crystalline violet ones.
and who you want to be.
"Come on," Chase seems to say, as he stretches a hand out to me.
"Where're we going?" Is all I can murmur out.
He gestures his head towards an even higher, more resplendent tree. He smiles and looks straight on at me.
"To who you want to be."
I take hold of his hand, and he leads me to our destination.
The voice of the Chase currently in front of my farmhouse, in front of me, broke me out of my reverie. His eyes seemed to register what I'd been thinking, almost telepathically. He brought his lips next to my ear and whispered gently, "Don't play games with me anymore, okay?" Vulnerability and fear coated his words.
There's always that tough boy you know in elementary school, who never cries and is always known as the 'strong one.' He's the one who stands up for other children when they're getting picked on – he's the one who gets into fights because he was protecting that scrawny kid who never fit in. You admire him for that unbreakable strength; the impermeable wall he seems to have been born with.
But then one day, you're walking home and you catch sight of him; sitting alone on a park bench, head buried in his small, balled up hands. You wonder what he's doing in that position, when you suddenly notice the slight shaking of his shoulders and the swollen red patches on his face. For the first time ever, you've witnessed the unthinkable. His impervious wall has crashed down, and he's crying. And you don't know what the hell you're going to do, but in that moment, all you know is that he's crying, and it's in that moment that you realize it's okay – normal – to cry, and it doesn't matter that he's supposed to be strong, because right now, he's not strong. Right now, he's falling from who he is, but that's alright. Because that means he's going to who he wants to be.
It was in that moment that I realized Chase was falling too.
His fingers lightly caressed mine, just like they'd done the night we'd kissed. My heart constricted, and it was all I could do to nod.
His victorious, cheeky smirk graced his face once again. "Good," he replied. "Give me back the cake."
Completely confused, I didn't react to him taking the delicate strawberry dessert out of my hands and into his own. He positioned himself in front of me, and looked me straight in the eyes. His own violet eyes sucked me in.
"Here, Molly," Chase play acted, sticking the slice of cake out to me again, "I made this cake for you." His playful smirk never left his face, but his hand, which had gone to cup my cheek, overshadowed the formality of his gesture. He brought his face closer; lips almost grazing mine. "I made it for you," he repeated, finally answering my question from when he'd first gifted me the cake, "because I like you."
I couldn't help the smile that threatened to tug at my lips, or the pang of rapturous emotion I felt when he said, "I like you," so genuinely.
"Thank you," I replied, going along with this strange cordially intimate act. I let my face inch even closer to his, challenging him in a battle of will. A smirk grew on my face to match his.
And I finally let myself fall.
"I like you too."
Together, hand in hand, Chase takes me to who we want to be.
The stars gleamed in the night sky, quiet, as they watched the earth go by. We stood on the porch of my house, smoking; the ethereal smoke floating up to join the lonely stars. I turned to look at Chase, who effortlessly held his cigarette between the joints of his index and middle finger, his motions languid. Purposeful.
I don't believe in love. Lust? Sure. Attraction? Definitely. Those emotions are simple enough to understand. But love?
His strands of honeyed peach hair were whisked up gently by the wind. The moonlight reflected itself in each individual strand. His violet eyes gleamed amethyst in the dark night. Secrets that had been exposed. The strong slope of his nose led to his parted lips, which were gently curled around a cigarette. Its translucent smoke seemingly caressed his face. Walking its fingers up his strong jaw. Trailing its way across his eyelids. Lidded with the swirls of galaxies.
He turned to face me, fingers working quickly, dexterously, to retract both our cigarettes from our lips.
He pressed his lips to mine in a tender fashion, completely unlike the one we'd kissed in before. His hand went to hold the back of my head as I let myself fall, fall, into his kiss.
He tasted like nectar and salt. Nectar and salt and oranges. Pollen and stars and hinges. He tasted like fairy tales. Cream on the tip of a fox's tongue. He tasted like hope.
We broke apart, and he let his fingers brush across mine like he always did.
But this time, he let his fingers interlace through mine; holding my hand in his. And it made me feel like hope. Not have hope, but like hope, and I don't know if that made any sense, but that was how it made me feel.
No, I do not believe in love.
He smiled that smile specially reserved for me – the one where one corner of his lips tugged up more than the other, and only half his teeth showed, but his eyes gleamed in a way that made me feel like hope.
But god damn.
Took me twenty-one years to realize: things fall.
It's gravity.
And it's okay.
Disclaimer: I do not own 'Daughter of Smoke and Bone' by Laini Taylor or the poem 'who she is and who she wants to be' or the 'gravity' quote.
Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed Chase's latest instalment! I hope the changes from 'real time' to Molly's thoughts are clear. You'll notice that I used a few line breaks for this chapter, because I felt it was necessary. This chapter was supposed to show Molly's conflicted thoughts towards love and Chase and even herself. Also, Molly was playing games with Chase because she was afraid, in spite of her whole soliloquy on how she defeats fear in the previous chapter with Chase. Despite the way she seems so sure of herself, she's actually very contradictory and to some extent, hypocritical. But this chapter was meant to show them letting go and falling, together. Hope you enjoyed, I always appreciate reviews/follows/likes!